Transept

Transept, the area of a cruciform church lying at right angles to the principal axis. The bay at which the transept intersects the main body of the church is called the crossing. The transept itself is sometimes simply called the cross. The nave of a church with a cruciform plan usually extends toward the west from the crossing, the choir and sanctuary toward the east. The arms of the transept are then designated by direction, as north transept and south transept. They may have aisles or not and are generally about the same width as the nave.

Medieval cathedral arranged on a cruciform plan

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There is disagreement over the origin of the transept. It may have developed from the bema, or platform, of Christian basilican churches, such as the original St. Peter’s, Rome. Or it may have developed from the cruciform plan of tombs in the time of the Roman emperor Constantine. Actual transepts first appear in Romanesque churches. Those of the Cluniac order had double transepts, a feature carried over into some English Gothic cathedrals such as those at Lincoln and Salisbury, the latter having main north and south transepts, and smaller northeast and southeast ones. The far more common plan of a Latin cross may be seen in San Michele, Pavia, Italy (c. 1155).

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...in 313. Constantine himself commissioned the construction of three enormous Christian basilicas in Rome: St. Peter’s, S. Paolo Fuori le Mura, and S. Giovanni in Laterano. He added a new feature, the transept, a lateral aisle crossing the nave just before the apse, and thus created the cross-shaped plan that became standard for churches in western Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

During a later period, a transept (q.v.) was added to the basilican plan in the form of a wing aligned perpendicular to the nave on a north-south axis and projecting from the boundaries of the nave to form the cruciform, or Latin cross, plan (e.g., Durham or Peterborough cathedrals). Auxiliary altars, dedicated to particular saints, were often erected at each end of the transept....